I Felt Like a King in Acer's $10,000 Thronos Battlestation

Acer first revealed its Thronos battlestation at IFA last year, but here at CES 2019, I finally got to try it. And I felt like a king.

I should have -- this battlestation, which will include a Predator Orion 9000 desktop as well as a keyboard, mouse, headset and three 27-inch monitors, will cost over $10,000. But there's no release date just yet. Oh, and there's not one but two cupholders!

The Thronos opens and closes with hydraulics controlled by a few buttons on the left arm rest. There's also a zero gravity mode that reclines the device to an almost lie-back fashion, though you really need to keep your hands on the mouse and keyboard, as there aren't any magnets holding them down.

Additionally, there's a haptic feedback remote for the chair. In my demo, it basically just gave me a really nice massage, but in theory games may work with this in the future (and hey, I'll take a gaming massage chair!).

The big issue, besides that I can't afford it, is that this thing wouldn't fit in my house. I imagine many others will sympathize with it. But I could totally see an arcade filled with these.

If you built your own rig, know that the Predator Orion attached to it isn't mandatory. Acer reps suggested they could sell a version without the PC, and that might bring the price down. But only slightly. It's a massive gaming chair with hydraulics, after all.

Andrew E. Freedman is an editor at Tom's Hardware focusing on laptops, desktops and gaming as well as keeping up with the latest news. He holds a M.S. in Journalism (Digital Media) from Columbia University. A lover of all things gaming and tech, his previous work has shown up in Kotaku, PCMag, Complex, Tom's Guide and Laptop Mag among others.